Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0018335, Mon, 18 May 2009 22:16:09 +0400

Subject
Re: THOUGHTS: Nabokov's Van Veen as a distant relative of
Pushkin's Onegin and Lermontov's Pechorin
Date
Body
I rely entirely on my feel of the language (I'm not a linguist though) and literature. Nabokov's novel begins in the country, somewhere in the province of St. Petersburg, not too far from the place where the Nabokovs' Vyra estate is situated (about midway between Petersburg and Luga). On the other hand, there really existed a minor writer Lugovoy, who took his pen-name after Luga and who partly might have served as a model for Luzhin pere.
As to Dostoevsky's novels, practically all of them are set in the city. Incidentally, because most surnames come from professions, the name Luzhin can come from ludit', "to tin". Readers with a hypersensitive ear can also discern lozh', "lie", in that name (Dostoevsky's Luzhin turns out to be a lier).
Sorry, if I don't answer all of your questions (or if my answers are a bit off theme). I do not risk it because my English is limited and you ask too many questions.

Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en

Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com

Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/







Attachment